Eat, Read, and Be Mommy

Once upon a few years ago, I started reading Tracey Hecht’s second “Nocturnals” book–The Ominous Eye–aloud to my three older children. (At the time, my youngest was too young to listen to a longer book read in chapter increments.) We’d already read the first one together and enjoyed it, so it seemed like a no brainer, right? Except that we started the second one towards the end of the summer, and once school started, it became too blasted difficult to find a time of day that worked to read to all three of them. The Ominous Eye sat gathering dust, and ultimately my oldest and my son lost interest in being read to, while my second girlie’s tastes grew more definitely towards realistic fiction. As a group, we officially bailed on it; I, however, had already marked it as “reading” on Goodreads, and my OCD really wanted me to just finish it on my own.

Reader, I finally did.

It took effort, I have to say; Hecht’s tone works better for a read-aloud, at least for me, and the plot is the type that happens to annoy me personally. I’ve never liked spending the majority of the book frustrated because almost everyone is under the villain’s spell, so to speak, meaning no one’s listening to the sensible hero. And while the villain in The Ominous Eye isn’t–quite–a villain, it does take the majority of the book for the forest creatures to see the truth. Bismark’s absurdities grew a little tired–perhaps because I’m not the target audience–and Dawn felt a little less leader-like, while Tobin just seemed kindly dim and Polyphema unlikely. Young readers might fall under Poly’s spell and fear the ‘Beast’, but overall, I wouldn’t recommend this one for an adult read.*

*On the other hand, if you loved the first one and it was totally your thing, you might enjoy this one as well. Let me know what you think!